It’s been a while since I dipped my pen back into the world of romance. I’ve spent the last few years tangled up in murder mysteries, psychological thrillers, giant squid monsters which threaten to destroy the world, you know…the usual.

So when I found myself turning back to writing romance this July, I’ll be honest, I went into it feeling a little more relaxed than I usually do. I thought, this’ll be a nice change of pace. Perhaps it was the sunny weather, but I felt like I could have a short story written in a matter of a few weeks. Easy work, right?

Wrong.

For starters, the idea grew legs very quickly, and it became clear that I wasn’t writing a short story for something to do between drafts of another project. I was writing a novel. Secondly (and probably more importantly), romance is bloody hard to write! Like, really hard. You can’t hide behind a twist ending or a cleverly timed corpse. Not to say that stuff is easy either (newsflash: no piece of writing is easy!). You’ve got to make people feel something. You’ve got to crack open the inside of a character’s chest and ask a reader to care about what’s beating in there. It’s vulnerable, it’s messy, and it turns out, it’s not an easy thing to do.

This is my first time writing romance since After All These Years, which came out in 2022 (written back in 2021, which feels like ten years ago). That was a very different kind of love story to what I’m working on now. My debut, Hey, you, was my other dip into the romance genre, but again, it couldn’t be more different to this current project. It’s funny looking back at those earlier books now, seeing how my voice has shifted, how the stories I want to tell have changed shape.

The idea for this particular story has been with me for a while. One of those quiet ones that sits patiently in the background, occasionally waving at you when you’re halfway through a completely different project or when I’m driving my son to his swimming lesson. I didn’t plan on writing it yet, but once I opened the door to it, it sort of walked in, hung up its jacket, and curled up on the sofa, refusing to leave.

And I’m glad it didn’t. Because, as hard as romance is to write, it’s also A LOT of fun, how it unlocks a new way of writing characters. I love nothing more than creating characters and studying their personalities and emotions. And what is a more powerful emotion than love?

I’ve been doing my read-through on the iPad lately, which has been surprisingly useful. There’s something about scribbling notes with the Apple Pencil that feels far more satisfying than stabbing at a keyboard. I’ve also been using the ElevenReader app to read the story back to me, and hearing it in a human-sounding voice really does something. The guys at ElevenLabs did a great thing with that app. Unfortunately, it’s become rather pricey, rather quickly, but that’s for another blog post! What I will say is that it makes the characters feel more alive, and more importantly, helps me figure out if the story is actually working. Especially the romance. If something makes me wince out loud, it usually needs a rewrite. Exhibit A:

I’m currently knee-deep in the second draft, which is about as glamorous as it sounds. A lot of pacing, muttering dialogue to myself in the attic (where I write), and questioning every sentence I wrote in the first draft. But somewhere in the middle of all that, there’s something that feels like a love story. Something I’m excited to share when the time comes.

If all goes well, and I don’t get distracted by another dark and twisty idea (unlikely), I’m hoping to have this one on shelves early next year. No spoilers for now. Just know that it involves the sea, an unexpected love, and a truth that could destroy it all. It’s a story which has pulled me back into the kind of writing I hadn’t realised I’d missed.

I will be opening BETA reading for this one soon, so stay tuned if you’re interested!

But aside from that, I can’t wait to share it with you!